In the past few weeks, we’ve (Force 5 Media) seen several articles on dealing with marketing and advertising in a down economy. In fact, studies have been done since the early 20’s dealing with recessionary times. The conclusion? Companies should maintain advertising and marketing during a recession. The studies in the 20’s-40’s-50’s and 60’s shown that during recessions, almost without exception sales and profits dropped off at companies that cut back on advertising. Doh! That makes sense right? But here’s the catch–The studies also revealed that after the recessions ended, those companies continued to lag behind the ones that had maintained their advertising budgets. A 1979 study showed similar findings. They found that “companies which did not cut advertising expenditures during the recession years (1974-1975), experienced higher sales and net income during those two years and the two years following than companies which cut ad budgets in either or both recession years.”
All of these study’s present evidence that cutting advertising in times of economic downturns can result in both immediate and long-term negative effects on sales and profit levels. The quote I liked said “I have yet to see any study that proves timidity is the route to success. Studies consistently have proven that companies that have the intelligence and guts to maintain or increase their overall marketing and advertising efforts in times of business downturns will get the edge on their timid competitors.”Obviously, this is a tough thing to do. Cutting the advertising budget seems sensible, but it’s not…. A strong marketing campaign, and a sensible advertising budget might make the upturn a little quicker for you, and leave those a bit more timid still trying to figure it out.
